Saturday, 30 September 2017

The highest-profile anniversary is the 30th of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The show debuted on 28 September 1987 with its two-hour pilot, Encounter at Farpoint, and lasted for seven years, 178 episodes and four feature films. It utterly transformed the fortunes of both Star Trek and science fiction in general, inspiring the boom the genre saw in Hollywood in the 1990s.

Celebrating its 20th birthday this week is the Fallout video game franchise. The original Fallout was released by Interplay and Black Isle on 30 September 1997, and to celebrate you can pick it up completely free for the weekend. A sequel, Fallout 2, followed a year later, along with several spin-off games. After Interplay's collapse, the licence was bought by Bethesda, who developed Fallout 3 and released it in 2008 to huge acclaim, taking an obscure franchise and transforming it into one of the biggest brands in gaming. Two sequels, New Vegas (2010) and Fallout 4 (2015) have followed.

Celebrating its 18th birthday is the Homeworld game franchise. The original Homeworld was released on 28 September 1999 and revolutionised video gaming with its full 3D interface and graphics. The game an enormous success and was followed by Homeworld: Cataclysm a year later. However, Homeworld 2 performed unsatisfactorily in 2003 and the franchise was put on ice for a decade. Gearbox picked up the Homeworld licence and released Homeworld Remastered in 2015, followed by a full prequel game, Deserts of Kharak in 2016. There have been hints that the franchise may continue.